The present invention relates to sausage slicing machines in general for salami and like products.
In particular, the invention relates to an automatic slicing machine of the type comprising a framework carrying an electric motor which drives an orbital blade and a feed device for continuously feeding a line of products to be sliced towards the path of displacement of the orbital blade.
In sausage slicing machines of this type there is a problem of feeding the products to be sliced towards the orbital blade in a regular and continuous manner so that the slices cut at each cutting cycle of the blade are as regular as possible and of constant thickness.
In a known slicing machine of the type mentioned above, the feed device comprises a plurality of continuous belt conveyors disposed in pairs on opposite sides of the products to be sliced and arranged to move and guide these until they are close to the path of displacement of the orbital blade.
This system, in addition to being complex and expensive both from the point of view of manufacture and maintenance, is unsatisfactory in that the two conveyors of each pair are not able effectively to support that portion of the corresponding product to be sliced which is adjacent the orbital blade. Indeed, the portion of the product projects from the ends of the two active runs of the two conveyors, and particularly in the case of products of low consistency such as salami, can give rise to irregularities and imperfections in the slices cut from time to time.
According to a further known solution, the feed device comprises a plurality of pushers arranged to press the products to be sliced progressively in the direction of the orbital blade.
This solution has similar disadvantages to those cited previously and is completely unsatisfactory when the products to be sliced have considerable axial dimensions and low consistency, as for example salami. Moreover, this solution does not allow completely continuous operation of the slicing machine.
The object of the present invention is to provide an automatic slicing machine of the type defined at the beginning in which the feed device is particularly simple, economical and functional and allows the disadvantages of the conventional devices cited above to be avoided.